A Week in Bento

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So here we are, a bunch of weeks into bento making, and I have to say I am far from bored with it. I’ve managed to find the veggies I like, meat I can quickly prepare, and the only thing that holds me up now is assembling it.

Note: all veggies are parboiled to maintain the vitamins and crispness. There is always going to be the flesh of some animal and when possible I pan fry in a little water in a cast iron skillet to cut down on the oil. I alternate between quail eggs and chicken eggs for protein, and I change up the rice with added basil or sage. Last week, I made risotto for the express purpose of panko breaded risotto cake. Crab dumplings and vegetable spring rolls are the only prepare food I’m currently using and those fry up quickly, though I could steam them. Despite their size, these lunches are definitely filling me up – and really, how much does a body need at lunch?

My main reason for doing this is to save money and to avoid eating out every day and tossing half of it, or bringing a prepared frozen lunch with  more sodium than anyone really needs. I’m not doing this to lose weight, but I’m sure it can’t be helped (oh shucky darn).

The standard deets:

• This is a 600ml (about 2.5 Cups) Sanrio ChocoCat Bento Box.
• None of what I make takes longer than 25 min in the morning.
• I have about 2 hours of prep on Sundays, cutting veggies, making rice and getting meat into single portion sizes
• The rice and meat are frozen. The rice is reheated morning of, and the meat is lightly defrosted for cooking.
• Where breading is concerned, I only use panko crumbs due to the amount of sodium in regular bread crumbs. Plus the taste is so much lighter
• The eggs are either chicken or quail. Quail are small, and have significantly fewer calories.
• Since I started using silicone baking cups, meats and rice or veggies go right into the toaster oven at work for reheating.

Here are the bento from last week:

 Monday’s box is fair of rice and stuff. Beef with mushrooms and onions (sukiyaki) and cheddar cheese, grape tomatoes, strawberries and kiwi, green beans, and a big old rice ball rolled in sesame seeds. The cheese, kiwi and cukes cheese are cut from mini cookie cutters.

Wednesday’s child is full of whoa, like whoa-momma, dig the risotto cakes and quail eggs. Also cauliflower, green beans, grape tomatoes cucumber butterflies, beef sukiyaki